Great Appointment by Lambeth Palace

Sir Hector Sants, former Chief Executive of the Financial Services Authority and Head of Compliance and regulatory affairs for Barclays Bank, has accepted the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation to chair a Task Group to help support the growth of Credit Unions as part of a more competitive financial sector which encourages responsible lending and saving.

The Task Group will develop the Church of England’s on-going support for local credit unions while working with the wider financial sector to build support for more competitive and community-based financial services. It will mobilise some of the offers of support and assistance which the Archbishop received following his comments in the summer. The Task Group will meet for the first time at the end of January.

Members of the Task Group include the bishops of Stepney and Hull, representatives of the credit union movement, and members with senior level experience in the banking and regulatory sectors.

Prior to taking up his post at Barclays, Sir Hector Sants was Chief Executive of the Financial Services Authority for five years. He announced his resignation from Barclays in November 2013 following a period of ill health. He takes up this post in a voluntary capacity for approximately one day a month.

Sir Hector said: “I have long recognised that the banking sector requires cultural change. Archbishop Justin’s work on the Banking Standards Commission, and his determination to follow through by mobilising the Church of England’s commitment to the common good and its local presence across the country, is an inspiration to many and I am delighted that I am able to support him in this very tangible and exciting project.”

Archbishop Justin said: “There are few people in today’s financial sector who have Sir Hector Sants’ breadth and depth of experience and outstanding reputation. I am enormously grateful and pleased that he has accepted my invitation to lead the church’s initiative to work with the credit unions to help serve all the people of this country better and to contribute to developing a more transparent and competitive system focused on serving the needs of everyone.”

It’s a great appointment – if we want to help people in financial difficulties avoid the burden of pay-day loans and also want to educate people on financial management, credit unions are an absolutely vital tool.

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Two Final Things

No one could describe
the Word of the Father;
but when He took flesh from you, O Theotokos,
He consented to be described, and restored the fallen image to its former beauty.
We confess and proclaim our salvation in word and image.
Kontakion of the Triumph of Orthodoxy